The States Reorganisation Act, 1956 was a major reform of the boundaries of India's states and territories, organising them along linguistic lines.[1]

Although additional changes to India's state boundaries have been made since 1956, the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 remains the single most extensive change in state boundaries since the independence of India in 1947.

The Act came into effect at the same time as the Constitution (Seventh Amendment) Act, 1956,[2] which (among other things) restructured the constitutional framework for India's existing states and the requirements to pass the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 under the provisions of Part I of the Constitution of India, Articles 3 & 4.

The British Indian Empire, which included present-day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, was divided into two types of territories: the Provinces of British India, which were governed directly by British officials responsible to the Governor-General of India; and the Indian States, under the rule of local hereditary rulers who recognised British suzerainty in return for local autonomy, in most cases as established by treaty. As a result of the reforms of the early 20th century, most of the British provinces had directly elected legislatures as well as governors, although some of the smaller provinces were governed by a chief commissioner appointed by the Governor-General. Major reforms put forward by the British in the 1930s also recognised the principle of federalism, which was carried forward into the governance of independent India.

On 15 August 1947, British India was granted independence as the separate dominions of India and Pakistan. The British dissolved their treaty relations with more than five hundred princely states, who were encouraged to accede to either India or Pakistan, while under no compulsion to do so. Most of the states acceded to India, and a few to Pakistan. Bhutan, Hyderabad and Kashmir opted for independence, although the armed intervention of India conquered Hyderabad and brought it into the Indian Union.

The new Constitution of India, which came into force on 26 January 1950, made India a sovereign democratic republic. The new republic was also declared to be a "Union of States".[3] The constitution of 1950 distinguished between three main types of states and a class of territories:

Part A states, which were the former governors' provinces of British India, were ruled by a governor appointed by the president and an elected state legislature. The nine Part A states were Assam, Bihar, Bombay, Madhya Pradesh (formerly Central Provinces and Berar), Madras, Orissa, Punjab (formerly East Punjab), Uttar Pradesh (formerly the United Provinces), and West Bengal.

The demand for states on linguistic basis was developed even before India achieved independence from British rule. In 1895, a first-of-its-kind linguistic movement started in what is now Odisha. The movement got intensified in later years with the demand for a separate Orissa Province to be formed by bifurcating the existing Bihar and Orissa Province.[5][6] Due to the efforts of Madhusudan Das, the Father of Oriya nationalism, the movement eventually bore fruit in 1936, when Orissa Province became the first Indian state (pre-independence) organized on a linguistic basis.

The post-independence period saw the ascent of political movements for the creation of new states developed on linguistic lines. The movement to create a Telugu-speaking state out of the northern portion of Madras State gathered strength in the years after independence, and in 1953, the 16 northern, Telugu-speaking districts of Madras State became the new State of Andhra.It was after the hunger strike of Potti Sriramalu.

Other small changes were made to state boundaries during the 1950-1956 period. The small state of Bilaspur was merged with Himachal Pradesh on 1 July 1954, and Chandernagore, a former enclave of French India, was incorporated into West Bengal in 1955. But post independence, the first state created on a linguistic basis was Andhra in 1953, created out of the Telugu-speaking northern parts of Madras State.

The States Reorganization Commission was preceded by the Linguistic Provinces Commission (aka Dhar Commission) in 1948 In December 1953, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appointed the States Reorganisation Commission to reorganise the Indian states. It was headed by the retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Fazal Ali. The other two members of the commission were H. N. Kunzru and K. M. Panikkar. The efforts of this commission were overseen by Govind Ballabh Pant, who served as the Home Minister from December 1954. The commission submitted a report on September 30, 1955, recommending the reorganisation of India's states. The Parliament debated the Commission report. Subsequently, bills making changes to the constitution and reorganising the states were passed.[7]

The States Reorganisation Act was enacted on 31 August 1956. Before it came into effect on 1 November, an important amendment was made to the Constitution of India. Under the Seventh Amendment, the existing distinction among Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D states was abolished. The distinction between Part A and Part B states was removed, becoming known simply as "states". A new type of entity, the Union Territory, replaced the classification as a Part C or Part D state.

A further Act also came into effect on 1 November, transferring certain territories from Bihar to West Bengal.[8]